


Couldn't Be

by reraimu



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Bullying, F/M, Genderswap, Humanstuck, M/M, Other, curvy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-11-25
Updated: 2011-11-25
Packaged: 2017-10-26 12:51:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/283341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reraimu/pseuds/reraimu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tavros doesn't like what she see's in the mirror, but someone else does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Couldn't Be

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo....curvy!fem!Tavros is realllyyyyy starting to get to me. I ship it like I do Johnkat. I ship it so hard. So I decided to give it a try! Here we go! OuO

This was not the first time Tavros glimpsed at herself in the mirror and grimaced at the reflection staring back at her. Her tan rounded face looked back at her, pursed lips drawn into a crooked little frown while almond shaped eyes slanted and looked nothing short of condemning.

Compared to other girls with weighty figures, Tavros supposed she wasn’t too bad off, but she would definitely label herself as the resident chubby girl. She was curvy in every way, shape, and form. Her stomach was soft and rounded, and depending on the fabric of whatever shirt she was wearing (this time, a white tank top), sometimes the excess pudge would strain against the material, as it was doing now. She hated that feeling and always found herself tugging at her shirt to get the fabric to loosen up.

She leaned a little ways forward, pressing her forehead against the cool glass of her bathroom mirror. She rubbed at her stomach, drawing random patterns across her tummy with the pads of her warm fingertips.  Her father had always told her to love her body for what it was, but sometimes…sometimes she just couldn’t look at herself.

If only her stomach were just a bit flatter and less noticeable, perhaps then she would have been a bit more comfortable in her body, but staying on a diet regimen and exercise program had proved to be too difficult to maintain time and time again. Between AP classes, preparing for college and juggling her tormentors at school, it was very hard to stay motivated.

Sometimes she wished it were someone else in the mirror staring back at her, someone with a slimmer body and fit physique like the more outgoing girls at her high school, girls like Vriska Serket who had slim-and-trim bodies and didn’t have to worry about trudging the walk of shame all the way over to the plus size section of Forever 21.

Tavros sighed and drew away from the mirror, rubbing her fingers through the shaggy Mohawk falling in lazy jagged strands across the length of her head. The sides of her head were now thick with black fuzz after letting her Mohawk grow out for a month. She was starting to consider letting her hair grow long, only so it could frame her face and hide its rounded shape from the world.

She didn’t always feel like this. Sometimes, on the days where she managed to escape Vriska’s sharp tongue and the scalding glare of her cohorts, Tavros was able to spend the rest of the school day unaffected by her weight and low self-esteem. She often wondered if she’d be less self-conscious if Vriska weren’t around, and had concluded that yes, she supposed she would be more comfortable in her body if she wasn’t always constantly being heralded with scathing insults. Her stuttering didn’t help her much either.

Tavros grabbed a spindly brush that was sitting atop the toilet and dragged it through the varying lengths of hair on her head, satisfied when it didn’t look as messy as it had when she first woke up. She then proceeded to streak the strands through with hair molding wax until the layers looked textured and fluffy. The only thing she was even remotely proud of was her hair—she had cut it all off and shaved it into a radical looking Mohawk by the beginning of 9th grade and had never went back since, although now, she was starting to reconsider. If she couldn’t hide from Vriska underneath sweaters and jackets, maybe should could hide underneath a veil of hair?

Tavros shook her plaguing thoughts away and continued with her morning hygiene regimen, all the while chanting her father’s words aloud to herself: you’re beautiful _mija_ , you’re absolutely beautiful, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. The words did little to rebuild her now shattered confidence; however, feeling them fall off the tip of her tongue seemed to calm her in some strange way. She felt protected now, although it wouldn’t do much come school time. She hoped she wouldn’t encounter Vriska and her group today. Tavros mimicked the motion of drawing a cross over her chest and pressed her hand to her lips.

 _‘Please let today be a good day.’_

 

 

 

 

 _  
_

 

Tavros swung her jean-clad legs back and forth as she sat on the bus stop bench. She hunched her shoulders and huddled in on herself, stuffing her gloved hands inside her pockets. Unfortunately, the weather this morning proved to be especially brutal. Even with her thick wool coat, scarf, gloves, and fuzzy boots, she could still feel the bitter chill seeping into her skin. She wasn’t used to this sort of weather. Southern California usually only got cold spells during the winter, and even then, the temperature always fluctuated from around 54 degrees to a sunny and breezy 76. Just like any So-Cal resident, Tavros relished the cold-front when it came because they hardly ever got one, but when you’re sitting out in the cold waiting for the bus to come while a fine layer of mist drizzled over you, let’s just say it wasn’t exactly pleasant.

“Hey, you gotta’ light?”

Tavros jerked to attention. She turned her head to the side, spotting a ragged looking older male who had apparently taken a seat beside her while she had been busy thinking of the weather of all things. He was turned towards her, looking expectantly at her, holding a roughed-up looking cigarette that hung limp between his fingers. Tavros fidgeted in her seat. She hated it when she was caught off guard. There were so many things that she could say back to him, but her skittish mentality never allowed her to think up of anything adequate enough to say on the spot.

“Uhm, no, I don’t smoke,” Tavros hesitated, her voice low and soft. “m’sorry.”

The man smiled at her, and she found herself inwardly grimacing as an unpleasant odor hit her nose. The man smelled like urine and cigarettes. His smile didn’t help either. His skin was smudged in varying shades of black, most likely dirt, and his thinning hair was matted and greasy as it lay in a half-ass comb-over across his balding head.

“Ya’ don’t smoke? You look like the type,” he laughed, his voice scratchy and deep. He scooted closer to her, his odor ever the more prominent. “Hey, you gotta’ boyfriend?”

Tavros immediately tensed up, her gloved fingers gouging into her coat pockets. She didn’t even want to comprehend his question, but she knew she couldn’t shake something like this off. She turned away from him, brown eyes shifting back and forth, back and forth, at a loss of what to say.  Why in the world did she always have to get the weirdoes? Why, why, why, why? Couldn’t she just sit at a bus stop by herself with minimal social interaction? Perhaps she was blowing this particular scenario out of proportion, but in her case, this was a big deal. She was a stutterer and a worrier and she never knew what to say in situations like these, let alone know how to properly defend herself.

Tavros looked about her, noticing that she and he were the only people at this particular bus stop. It was cold out, the sky was gray, and there was a shady looking man sitting beside her that had just propositioned her out of the blue.

“You’re really sexy you know that?” the man continued, and with a sudden shift of his hand, his grubby fingers were on her thigh, dirty palms softly rubbing up and down against her jeans, slowly traveling higher and higher and higher, and Tavros’ eyes were watering up and her mouth was agape, and she had absolutely no fucking idea what to do. She wanted to scream for help, perhaps catch someone’s attention just so she could scare the guy off, but what if that was unnecessary? What if it only made her look like a pitiable fool? Would anyone even come to her rescue? Here she was, some chubby teenager sitting on a bench being felt up by some weird hobo-man, and Jesus Christ, could it get any worse?

“Hey Tav.”

Then suddenly, a savior.

Tavros whipped her head to the side, a crashing wave of relief washing over her as she stared up at the lanky form of her best friend in the entire universe: Gamzee. Time seemed to stop.

That horrid man’s hand was still on her thigh, but had halted its advances, and now both Tavros and the hobo-guy were both staring at Gamzee, whose eyes were slightly lidded and looking back and forth between the two. Tavros was just sitting there, eyes wide and quivering, tears trickling down her flushed cheeks, and she looked so completely terrified. Tavros would never forget the way Gamzee’s eyes seemed to narrow, his eyebrows furrowing together as his parted lips pursed into a thin line, and then quite suddenly, Tavros found herself nearly being hurled off the bench as Gamzee’s fist flew right past her and squared the man right in the jaw.

Tavros scrambled off the bench and stood off to the side, watching as the man stood up and nursed his jaw, throwing a couple of curse words at Gamzee before turning tail and booking it. The man’s withered cigarette lay forgotten and trampled on the cement.

Tavros stared down at the ground, fiddling with the dangling ends of her back pack straps, trying to forget what had just occurred, but she couldn’t will the frightening experience away. She could still smell the man’s cloying odor, could still feel the way his palm had rubbed up and down her thigh, so close to her genitals, and she really needed to sit down.

She took a seat on the bench yet again, settling her shaking hands on her lap. She could hear Gamzee slowly breathing above her, could smell his scent: a mixture of pot and Febreze, and if his scent had a physical form, she would have snatched it up and wrapped it around her like a scarf.

“Tavros?”

She didn’t even bother to look up, let alone respond. She felt guilty; here she was ignoring her best friend, the best friend who had just saved her sorry butt, and she wasn’t even bothering to respond or thank him. She was a terrible friend.

A sudden weight on the bench made her still. She looked up then, slightly turning her head to the side towards Gamzee. She wanted to smile at the sight of him, but her lips wouldn’t curve upward. His wavy black hair was wind-swept and messy, just how it usually was, and his posture was hunched and anything but proper, but she supposed that’s what she liked about him. He was so blithe and friendly, partially due to all that pot he smoked on a regular basis, but he was such a good friend regardless. They were practically attached at the hip, actually. They had been best of friends since elementary school, and sometimes, Tavros was amazed that their friendship had survived and flourished all the way into high school. She wondered what he was doing here. He usually carpooled with Karkat.

“You okay chica?” he asked softly. Tavros blinked at him, a small laugh escaping her chapped lips. She nodded at him and rubbed at her eyes with her gloved hands.

“That was, uhh, scary,” she finally managed to choke out. She turned to him and managed to give him a weak smile. “T-thank you, Gamzee.”

She blinked at him when he simply nodded and held out his arms, wriggling his long, nimble fingers at her. “Come and give a motherfucker a hug.”

Tavros surprised herself when she practically latched onto him. Lanky arms wrapped around her plush form, and despite Gamzee being long-limbed and gawky, she could feel the warmth of his skin penetrating through the layers of their clothing. She curled into him and shyly wrapped her arms around him, resting her hands at his lower back. She could hear the slow and steady beat of his heart against her ear.

“We’re gonna’ have to all up and get you a carpool, sis,” he spoke through her hair. His voice was unusually hard and sharp, his tone razor-thin. She could practically picture his livid face, something he did so rarely. Tavros merely nodded.

“What are y-you doing here, anyway?” she murmured against his chest. He smelled bitter-sweet, like day-old pot laced with something fruity and tropical—the Febreze. It was familiar to her, a bit overpowering, but not at all unpleasant. She hoped none of the officers at school would be able to smell it on him. She never wanted to see him being hauled out in cuffs into the backseat of a police unit.

“I was at Miguel’s,” Gamzee drawled.

“Oh,” Tavros replied. She knew what that meant. Miguel was one of Gamzee’s suppliers, and occasionally, Gamzee would do a little selling on the side in order to make a quick buck. Miguel also lived only a block away from this exact bus stop. “Did you, have, fun?” She heard and felt Gamzee laugh against her, his laughter low and throaty, lilting and warm.

“Shit, we hot-boxed his dad’s car. Motherfucker was pissed as fucking hell; gonna’ lay low for a week,” Gamzee smiled, drumming his fingers along Tavros’ back. “What’d you do?”

“I, uhm, watched Tinkerbell and the Great Fairy Rescue last night,” Tavros smiled against his chest.

“Oh? And how the motherfuck was that Tav-sis?” Gamzee asked, starting to sway his body. Both of their bodies were rocking back and forth, back and forth, and Tavros didn’t mind at all.

“Well, it was okay,” Tavros went on. She was starting to get excited. “I was sort of disappointed that, uhh, Peter wasn’t in it, he never is, but there were many references!”

She felt Gamzee pull away from her, a wide dopey smile across his lips, and then his hands cupped either side of her face, gently squishing her cheeks together until her lips puckered. She blew a raspberry at him. He grinned and began rubbing the pads of his thumbs alongside her jawline, dark eyes roaming over the expanse of her tanned face, and just when she was starting to get uncomfortable (because now they were just staring at each other), Tavros glimpsed to the side and saw the tell-tale form of the bus in the distance.

“Bus is here,” she squeaked through pinched cheeks. Gamzee tilted his head and released her, standing up from the bench. Tavros was sort of disappointed that he was no longer holding her anymore, but it would have been silly if they had remained that way. When the bus finally pulled up at their stop, Tavros just hoped that when she got to school, she’d go through the day unnoticed.

However, luck wouldn’t be on her side, unfortunately.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The word "mija" means "my daughter" in Spanish, although when my family uses it, it sounds more like "honey" or "sweetie".
> 
> Please leave a comment if you can and tell me what ya' think! OuO


End file.
